I work for a business which repairs low voltage equipment e.g. printers, faxers, hard drives etc. The bench engineers sit at the bench and work to fix them. They have to sometimes work on Live equipment during testing. What practical precautions should they have.. ....insulating rubber matting, rubber wrist bands, RCD's. We've been approached by a supplier wanting to sell us anti static chairs at £200 each. Is, inserting rubber castors sufficient and do we need them bearing in mind the precautions we have......what else should we have from a practical point of view

If you are working with live equipment then probably the last thing you want is anti-static kit! Anti-static kit is CONDUCTIVE, that is it allows a minute current to flow through it to "earth" so that there is no build up of static. Now you have to decide on where the largest risk is, the live working may provide no hazard whatsoever. The static charge build up may destroy the equipment being worked upon. There is a cost/benefit situation. IF you are REALLY concerned about the live working move to an earth free zone with isolating transformers, this means that the operatives can touch the live conductors without receiving a shock. You will then have to blend this with the anti-static requirement. The choice is yours! Generally as Dave Daniel has stated, however, the 230V a.c. mains voltage is classed as LOW VOLTAGE. The voltages present within the equipment would be extra low voltage or other specialist extra low voltage supplies known as PELV, SELV & FELV. Anything below 50 V a.c. &... I don't have my "books" to hand they are out in the cold! It's late & I'm not going out in the freezing cold to get them! Sorry! You get the gist, if you want any more info please post or PM. The voltage present at the equipment will determine the precautions, a bare hard drive will not have more than 12V d.c. applied, whilst this comes under EAWR it is not classed as a hazardous voltage and the potential energy from a suitable power supply should be insufficient to cause injury. However, the power supply in a printer or fax machine would probably have 230V a.c. present there in. However, unless live working is undertaken internally on the power supply, by design the separation of the power supply should be adequate to ensure that no hazardous voltages can exist within the main body of the unit. If they did then the unit would definitely be in for repair!